Nuclear travel has been experimented with for over 50 years. Concepts of everything from cars to planes to civilian ships have been made. Most of them have been rejected, but not all. Most were rejected because of the shielding that would be required so radiation doesn’t leak. It would add a lot of weight and if it didn’t work, people would die and the radiation would harm the environment. However, some projects have been successful, mostly ships. There was only one nuclear passenger ship ever created, the NS Savannah. It would dump its nuclear waste into the ocean. And while this never really hurt the environment, the public, news, and politicians went ballistic. Today, there is a large call for more energy efficient ships, especially …show more content…
In 1958 Ford came out with a nuclear powered car they called the Ford Nucleon. Now this car wasn’t very big; it was a scale model of a production vehicle. The idea didn’t go through because at the time, there wasn’t even a reactor small enough to conceivably fit into a vehicle. Even today the smallest GEN IV nuclear reactor weighs around 50 tons. Most of that is shielding, but when you think about how many car accidents per year there are, you would want good …show more content…
Used for many years in moonshine, methanol takes the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide and hydrogen to make it. Methanol could be used in todays vehicles for fuel; there would be no need to change the engines. The only problem would be the vast amount of energy needed to extract the carbon dioxide and hydrogen. Another new idea is called a TMSR. It is an alternative to a standard nuclear reactor that is supposed to be meltdown-proof and able to operate at higher temperatures than standard equipment. This reactor most likely wouldn’t be used in cars, but it is another object in the progression of nuclear alternatives. Now on to aircraft. I say aircraft because they aren’t all planes. In fact, the most promising use for nuclear power in aircraft is being engineered by NASA. Their goal is to create a nuclear powered rocket that could be used in the future to travel space. In fact, they are very optimistic and say they would like to have this technology to use within a few years. Other air travel has been tried, but due to the extensive shielding, none has been accomplished. Not only that, but there also isn’t much of a call for that today, with in air refueling